According to Goel, setting up of a Sovereign Patent Fund to acquire IPs for IC chips and some commonly used product IPs would support Indian MSME entrepreneurs by making this technology available at a very low cost.

In November last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a slew of measures, including sanction of loans of up to Rs 1 crore to small and medium enterprises in 59 minutes through a special portal.

Compulsory purchases from MSMEs made by state-run firms were increased to 25% from 20% of their total procurement and the GST Council raised GST Tax exemption limit to Rs 40 lakh from the earlier cap of Rs 20 lakh.

The MSME sector which has been hit hard by demonetisation and by the haphazard implementation of GST, is a crucial vote bank and with 2019 general elections around the corner, the government wants to get the right message across.

Dheeraj Hinduja, chairman at India’s second largest truck maker Ashok Leyland, prefers a low profile, but with managing director Vinod Dasari leaving at the end of the month, he says he’s become more “hands-on”.